Alison Avery

Warning. Don't use Intuit's TurboTax online to file your tax returns. Here's what I just encountered: TurboTax was creepy in the way it tried to sneak in lots of tax return data harvesting for Intuit's own purposes and companies, including, but not limited to, their company Credit Karma. 1) Throughout the return creation process, many questions and prompts seemed like they were for the tax return, itself, but we're actually lead-ins to consenting to give your personal return data to Intuit and their affiliated companies. 2) In tandem with point 1, often they did not make opt-outs obvious, taking many secondary clicks before finding that "No Thanks" or "Skip" prompts were even available, leaving you wondering if the return process could move forward without being forced to consent. 3) Some of the consent attempts even used tricky "Review and Sign" language on buttons, similar to what you might see when at the point of reviewing and signing your return, as confusing clickbait. These deceptive practices happened at many points of interaction throughout the return, from the very beginning to the very end. Just a warning for anyone else who will be filing taxes. I definitely won't be using or recommending this service again. Please repost if you feel this would be important for anyone who follows you to know. #nostr #grownostr #bitcoin #taxes #plebchain #plebs #privacy #truth or lack thereof #don'ttrustverify

Lately, I've been internally referring to 95-97% of all media content as the "seed oils" of communication. If you value your powers of observation and logical thought, it's simply best not ingest it. #nostr #grownostr #seedoils #observation #mentalhealth #rationalthinking

#SilentSunday #trees #flowers #nature #photography

Found this in a cool local kitty-cat shop today, and I'm pretty darn sure I have to get it. Rosie the Riveter has met her match. #catstr #cats #animals #artstr #art #grownostr

Dear Nostr, I ask this question not as a judge of people who embrace the term "value for value" exchange—no chosen turns of phrase will ever perfectly represent reality. I ask because I often observe how the shorthand we use in language, even if created to express shared ideas more concisely, can come also, in time, to represent moral posturing. Also, the question is not intended as a denigration of the idea of profiting. My experience in many domains is that people and groups are rarely, if ever, trying to execute value for value (or win-win) exchanges. If you're trying to "profit", you're explicitly trying to gain more in energy and resources than you give away in energy and resources, even if this difference is come by indirectly (i.e. costs experienced by "someones" or "somethings" unknown to you in the entire chain of resources.) This idea of "profit" seems similar to how wild animals and organisms use some kind of advantage they have over other animals and organisms, which, in turn, leads to their ongoing survival in the wild. If the above are accurate, are terms like "value-for-value" and "win-win" closer to virtue signaling than accurate descriptions for what is taking place? Would a terms like "direct exchange" or "straight trade" be more honest and correct? All thoughtful responses are appreciated, regardless of length. Sincerely, Alison #bitcoin #nostr #asknostr #grownostr #plebchain #v4v #btc #bitcoiners #psychology #nosterplebs #finance

Meaningful 7-minute discussion on: -gullibility and - distraction via the illusion of choice Dennis Miller and George Carlin, circa 2001 Some things never change.😉 #grownostr #culture #observations #advertisingculture #DennisMiller #GeorgeCarlin https://m.primal.net/OEmh.mp4

𝐁𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐯𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐲 𝐟𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐬. 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞'𝐬 𝐦𝐲 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐠𝐨 𝐚𝐭 𝐨𝐧𝐞. 𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐮𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝𝐥𝐲 𝐭𝐫𝐲 "𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐮𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨" 𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐟𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐰𝐞 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐨𝐲: #memes #memestr #foodstr #grownostr

The next time I "knead" a massage, I'll remember this. Important to identify a real expert. #catstr #cats #funny #memes #plebchain #grownostr #humor #todayilearned #v4v https://m.primal.net/NglY.mp4

Some of my recent personal notes from anthropologist David Graeber's book Debt: The First 5,000 Years. These notes are excerpts that I've condensed and, to some extent, paraphrased or simplified. NOTES: The result during the Axial Age (800 BC-600 AD) was a new frame for making assumptions about human motivation. It simplified human motivation to concepts like "profit" and "advantage". They began to assume that "profit" and "advantage" are what all people are pursuing in every aspect of existence. Thus, with realities like the violence of war or the impersonal nature of the "marketplace", this simplified frame allowed them to drop the pretense that they cared. This, in turn, allowed human life to become a simple matter of means-to-end calculation--some­thing that could be examined using the same means used to study the attraction and repulsion of celestial bodies. It's not coincidental that this assumption resembles those of contemporary economists. This picture of humanity begins to appear with consistency across Eurasia wherever we see coinage and philosophy appear. China provides a transparent example. In Confucius's time, Chinese thinkers spoke of the pursuit of profit as the driving force in human life. The term used was "li", a word first used to refer to the increase of grain harvested over and above what was originally planted (the Chinese pictogram for this word is a sheaf of wheat next to a knife). From there "li" came to mean commercial profit and a general term for "benefit" or "payback." The following story tell's the reaction of a merchant's son named Lu Buwei on learning that an exiled prince was living nearby. It clearly illustrates the progression of "li" coming to mean "profit" or "return": Upon coming home, he said to his father, "What is the profit on investment that one can expect from plowing fields?" "Ten times the investment," replied his father. "And the return on investment in pearls and jades is how much?" "A hundredfold." "And the return on investment from establishing a ruler and securing the state would be how much?" "It would be incalculable." Lu then adopted the prince's cause and eventually contrived to make him King of Qin. He continued on to become first minister for the king's son, Qin Shi Huang, helping him defeat the other Warring States to became the first Emperor of China. We still have a compendium of political wisdom that Lu commissioned for the new emperor. It contains such military advice as the following: "As a general principle, when an enemy's army comes, it seeks some profit. Now if they come and find the prospect of death instead, they will consider running away the most profitable thing to do. When all one's enemies consider running to be the most profitable thing to do, no blades will cross. This is the most essential point in military matters." #ReadingChallenge2025 #5000YearsofDebt #nostr #grownostr #history #philosophy #money #economics